ITG previews 2012-13 Heroes and Prospects

In The Game’s2012-13 Heroes and Prospects set is coming together and the company released the first images today.

As the name says, there will be a focus on old and new players, but this time the entire prospect set will feature solely players from the Canadian Hockey League.

The CHL is the governing body of major junior hockey in Canada. It’s widely considered one of the best developmental leagues. That means collectors can expect find players with some great potential.

“I have been asked year after year to increase the numbers of juniors in the product. This year I was able to make this happen by concentrating solely on the juniors,” ITG’s Dr. Brian Price wrote on his blog. “This happens to be a great year to do so as there are some great prospects in the CHL this year.”

The Heroes and Prospects base set will consist of a 199-card base set: 30 heroes, 120 prospects and 49 draft picks from 2013.

The draft picks will be unique as they will feature 3D fronts on each card.

One of the chase elements of Heroes and Prospect will come down to the decoy/puzzle pieces. Eleven players will have puzzle cards, but collectors can either redeem them for other items or keep them as a set once completed.

The set will have autograph and game-used memorabilia cards. It is scheduled to be released mid-January.

4 Comments

I’ve always loved In the Game’s stuff, especially this set, but I’m VERY disappointed there’ll be no AHL players. With two teams playing within a 20-minute drive of where I live, I’ve been an AHL fan longer than I’ve been an NHL fan. Especially with the lockout going on indefinitely, you’d think they’d capitalize on making cards of the top players in the top league currently playing.

I suspect that “This year I was able to make this happen by concentrating solely on the juniors” really means that they weren’t able to get licensing for the AHL, which is a same. I’ve collected H&P every year since it started, but this year probably not.

It’s a shame, too, because I had been really looking forward to this set and the basic design looks really great.